Mariner's Compass Finished

Yayyy I finally got the border to work out and finished the top of my Mariner's compass this week. I just have to sandwich it now which will be a weekend endeavor as it is sooooo big, it is 96" x 96". Then I can start quilting it, though have to work out what I want to quilt on it, I have some ideas but I am sure more will come once I start.

I placed the top onto my bed to gauge size and it is long enough all round for both me and my mother. This quilt is my Mum's and Dad's Christmas present.

A better view of the last border 

I then made some pillow cases to go with the quilt - well actually the top of the pillow case, I need to wait until I have sandwiched the quilt to use the backing to make the back of the pillow case.

While doing all this during the week I also traced out the next border for my Diamond Hill onto Polyfuse and started cutting them out and have stuck first corner to green for the leaves. As you can see I have used different flowers this time in the border to the previous border so I am hoping my ideas will pan out to make the quilt bigger, only time will tell.

Well that is it for this week, keep quilting everyone.

UFO's - Attempting to finish

Well it has been a couple of weeks and I have started to drag out the UFO's and attempt to get them finished. I also have had some progress on Christmas presents and managed to complete one Christmas present so am feeling very accomplished at the moment.

The first UFO that I have completed is my Diamond Hill, I have completed it as far as the pattern is concerned but it is too small for my bed. As this is my present to myself I need the quilt to be bigger as I have just bought myself a new mattress and by god it is tall, I feel like I can nearly touch the ceiling when I sit up lol. So as for Diamond Hill I need to make it bigger. The photo's I have are without the final 1" pink border but they have been attached. I think I will do another applique border and plain border to finish it off. I was thinking about using flowers from the blocks so that most of the flowers will be incorporated into the borders from the blocks. I won't be adding any more diamond blocks as I thought if I make the applique meet in the middle instead it would be more like a final round so to speak. Any way we will see once it is done.

So the poor Diamond Hill went back into the UFO pile while I start to slowly work on the applique part.

I then started on some Christmas presents and managed to get one done. I made 6 placemat's for my boss who likes tractors and his wife who likes lady bugs. Last year I did a table centerpiece using the same ladybug material so I thought why not do some placemat's that will go with this. Then next year for Christmas I can do a table runner that will match.

Here is the Centerpiece.

Here is whole placemat

A better if not blurry look at the machine embroidery of the Tractor's

A close up of the red, ladybug and green material.

I then went through the UFO pile and picked up my Mariner's compass quilt again and soon discovered why it was in the UFO pile. I have one final border to go and trying to work out how to make the border fit as I have cut all my material to make the squares for the border so I can't change my mind on what will be in the border even if I wanted to as I don't have much of the fabric left. So I think I have worked it out that the squares need to have a sashing between them to get it to fit the centerpiece.

Centerpiece so far.

closer look at the mariner's compass

some machine embroidery

some machine embroidery

could not believe I found this fabric to go with my compass

the corner block

blocks for the final border.

Well that is it for me this time round. I was given a desert rose plant that is supposed to be brown thumb proof (which is me) and so far it has proven to have survived me. Thought I would share what beautiful colours it has and I am thoroughly enjoying seeing this every time I come up my driveway and see the rich beautiful pink sitting there. I must say I am really glad that it has survived me. I do really well with plants until the really bad heat of summer comes then it's like I can't keep up with them and they all start dying. Oh well I know how they feel, as the heat makes me want to curl up and frizzle too :).

Till next time happy quilting everyone.

Wedding Quilt Gifted

Wedding Quilt Gifted

This week I finally gave the wedding quilt to its intended recipients - they loved it and I have attached photo's for you of the finally finished wedding quilt.

a close up of some of the FMQ

I also finished the applique border for Diamond Hill and attached it - what a learning curve attaching corners & sides but I got there in the end.

Now I am onto the next border and need another 100 diamond squares ( I am sure these things are here to haunt me - lol). Here I have the pieces all ready to be sewn together.

Otherwise that is it from me this week except that the temperature is rising fast here in tropical North Queensland and starting to get very hot and sticky.

Its been a while

Wow what a couple of weeks it has been since I was last here. I have been really busy with work, then my ex-Mother-In-Law came up for a holiday to see the kids and me. Her visit was good, it had been 8 years since we were all together and it was nice to see her again and spend some time together. I know she enjoyed spending time with the kids and they have both grown so much since she last saw them.

Because of all this I haven't gotten much quilting done however I was able to give her the quilt I made which was good. Everyone back where she lives absolutely loves the quilt and she sent me a photo of it on her bed.

You would think I made this quilt especially for this room but I didn't know what the room looked like until this photo.

Well I have made some more progress on Diamond Hill and attached two corners and one side of the border and nearly finished stitching down the applique on the other two corners. So will hopefully finish that and will attach photo's of that border done.

One corner of the border attached

The middle of the border with the two corners on each side.

With this quilt I have used the freezer paper and starch method for turning the edges of the applique however I have used two different products - Pollyfuse & Pollystick. The pollyfuse is like a light interfacing that fuses to the back of the fabric and the pollystick is an adhesive light interfacing. I am testing which one I prefer on the last two corners of Diamond Hill as they both apparently wash away. I must say using either of these is so much more quicker than the starch and freezer paper method but not sure if I like the thick feeling the applique has with each of these. Will keep you posted on how this goes.

This one has the pollystick 

This one has the pollyfuse

I am still machine stitching the pollystick corner down and still glue basting the pollyfuse down.

I also finished another embroidered square of my Daughters quilt and have attached that so now only have four more squares to embroider and the centre is done and her quilt will be nearly finished. I am sure she is looking forward to this being done.

During the last couple of weeks the baby of the house got a very overdue clip as it took so long to get him into the dog groomer that his fur was actually matting while trying to brush him. The heat came on suddenly and he started to drop his winter coat but he had so much of it, it couldn't go anywhere the poor little thing but he now has no fur (well very little) and he looks like a completely different dog.

Before he was clipped and very hot

After he was clipped with his bestest friend

 Well off to link up with Esther now, have a good week and I hope you get some sewing done :).

WIP's - What I have been working on.

This week I tried a new way of sandwiching my quilts. I have been researching different ways of sandwiching quilts that did not break your back or kill your knees. I have been using my sewing table which is quite large to drape all the layers over and slip and slide it around to baste it together, however I now have a hole in my table for my sewing machine which limited the space I could pull tight and baste. After using google (my best friend these days) I decided to try rolling the layers on timber planks so to speak. I headed off to Bunnings (local hardware store) and purchased 3 x 2.7m thin planks of timber and headed home to roll the top, backing and batting onto them.

Once home I found rolling the batting the hardest and most back breaking - but then using my small kitchen table was not probably the best idea as had way to much over hanging, so next time I will try the floor as hopefully I don't need to get down on the floor to do this. Getting down is the easy part but getting back up again is a whole other story...lol not to mention how much the hard floor hurts my back and knees. Anyway I managed to get the batting rolled up - a little wonky but it was rolled up. I then used my new ironing table to roll the top and backing which wasn't as hard as the batting.

Then it came time to make the sandwich, I must say this is a much better way to sandwich the quilt even though I did it on my small kitchen table with lots of over hang, I definitely preferred the way you have control of the layers and tightness of them together. I was only able to baste a little bit at a time but by being able to see each layer as you lay it out and smooth it, tighten it before adding the next layer is definitely better then the way I was doing it. On my last quilt before this I ended up skating very close to the edge of the backing and nearly ended up with the writing on the edge being on the back of the quilt as I couldn't see if I was aligned properly. This new way allows you to adjust the different layers as needed as you can always see where each layer will go.

Rolling the top

The other end of the top roll.

Here is a photo of the sandwiching process.

So I also did some work on my Diamond Hill quilt as well and thought I need to start making those little diamonds for the border. The pattern offers different ways of doing these however I chose the paper piecing method without the paper and they are excruciating to make but they have the WOW factor once finished and definitely give you a great feeling of satisfaction once they are complete. Though while I was making these I did keep thinking about those on the facebook page that had applique's the diamonds on and that it would have been quicker to do that, however I believe you start as how you intend to finish and as I started to do them this way I was to continue to do them this way for the whole project. I also finally started to starch my edges over on the second border applique pieces.

Once the squares were completed to trim down I lined up the points of the diamond on the cutting mat with the lines on the mat. I just eyeballed the lining up.

Then I used my ruler to line up with the lines on the ruler with the ones on the mat and left a 1/4 inch seam allowance from the diamond point.

Then sewed together matching points and seams.

During the week I had a little visitor come visit me in my sewing room while I was squaring up these tiny blighters. It appears my daughters new budgie likes my sewing room especially my sewing machine and fat quarter's every chance he gets when he is out of his cage he tries to head for my sewing room. My daughter has only had him for a couple of weeks and he already is happily sitting on her shoulder and finger and starting to try and mimic a clicking sound we are constantly saying to him. I keep teasing her that the budgies first word will be the dog's name Buddy as we are constantly saying his name especially when he is out of his cage as the dog thinks they should become best friends and keeps harassing the bird to sniff it and push it around.

Well I feel like I have accomplished a lot this week on different projects as I feel I have been neglecting some of my projects as the Garden Window quilt kept me busy for quite a while and the wedding quilt is turning into a very quick quilt with me already starting the FMQ though I must say I am having difficulty in working out what to FMQ and where as this quilt came together so fast I didn't get my usual time to process what I think would look good on each section but never mind I am slowly working that out and hope what I choose will look good.

Until next time - Have a great week.

Garden Window Completed

Wow another week has come and gone so quickly. Well I have been very busy this past week between work, sewing, and family drama I feel I have accomplished a lot this week. No wonder I feel very tired and it's only Tuesday.

Where to start - I finally completed the Garden Window quilt, it is all FMQ and binding all sewn down. It was a great feeling to finish. So here is the picture I promised last week as it has been washed and finally the wind had died down long enough for me to get a photo (very early in the morning mind you).

I then moved onto a quilt for my old neighbours that became good friends for their wedding in December 2017. I started this last week and have completed the top and pillow cases this week. Now all I have to do is sandwich it and FMQ it. I have always wondered why people loved the HST for quilts, I now know. If you need a really quick quilt do HST, I can't believe this quilt went together so quickly and I even embroidered some of the squares on my embroidery machine.

So without further ado here are some photo's to enjoy.

The Pillow Cases:

The quilt top

The three middle squares have been machine embroidered

As you can see I have been rather busy but then my daughter has been working a lot last week which helped as I sew while I wait for her to finish at night, it helps keep me awake.

So till next time, go ahead and sew :).